Land Acknowledgement Practices: Functions, Efficacy, Controversy, and Union College

As an extension of research done for the History and Symbols Committee and President Harris’ Race, Power, and Privilege initiative, this research analyzes the concept of land acknowledgement, as a whole and looks at Union College and its relations with Indigenous communities. In recent years, non-Indigenous people have begun to recognize that the land that they currently reside upon is not their own. Indigenous peoples belong to the land of North America. They once held the only claim to the North American continent and have since faced centuries of maltreatment, removal, dispossession of massive tracts of land, forced indoctrination, and many more atrocities. However, the practice of land acknowledge has quickly become convoluted by virtue signaling white people and has emphasized the comfortability of white people over sincerely acknowledging Indigenous peoples and the land. A survey of the Union College community conducted in February provides insight into the community’s awareness of land acknowledgement practices, local tribes and nations, and individual opinions on whether or not Union should release a land acknowledgement statement. The Office of Intercultural Affairs is in the process of creating and releasing a land acknowledgement statement. An analysis of other higher education institutions in upstate New York provided a comparison of how Union relates to these other institutions in regard to land acknowledgement. The research culminates in suggestions for how to best conduct land acknowledgement and that the efforts should not stop with the release of the statement and a ceremony. Union should support Indigenous students and communities more than they do and should make more substantial efforts to inform its own community of the history of the land on which it sits as well as those who belong to this land.